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Times Square, NYC (where the ball drops at midnight)

Outsourcing to software centers in Bangalore or call centers in Chennai are passe.

So 20th centuryish.

The latest frontier in outsourcing to India is womb rentals for foreigners who require a surrogate, according to an Associated Press story by Sam Dolnick in USA Today.

A team of maids, cooks and doctors looks after the women, whose pregnancies would be unusual anywhere else but are common here. The young mothers of Anand, a place famous for its milk, are pregnant with the children of infertile couples from around the world.

The small clinic at Kaival Hospital matches infertile couples with local women, cares for the women during pregnancy and delivery, and counsels them afterward. Anand’s surrogate mothers, pioneers in the growing field of outsourced pregnancies, have given birth to roughly 40 babies.

More than 50 women in this city are now pregnant with the children of couples from the United States, Taiwan, Britain and beyond. The women earn more than many would make in 15 years.

While the critics may carp, we consider womb rental a trickle down benefit to the masses of outsourcing, which has mostly benefitted urban educated youth in India so far.

The beneficiaries in this round of outsourcing need have no fancy computer science degree or learn to speak with an American accent and call themselves Susan and Tom.

They can remain Lila behn or Mira behn. All the women Continue Reading…

God save India.

But which God?

We have the Sun God, Monkey God, Elephant God, Snake God and now it seems India has a Visa God too, going by a story in today’s Wall Street Journal.

The Chilkur Balaji temple near the South Indian city of Hyderabad has established a reputation among believers of Lord Balaji that their application for a Visa to the U.S. and other western countries will be successful if they pray at this temple.

Apparently, news of the Visa God’s prowess has spread and the temple now attracts 100,000 visitors a week.

As Vauhini Vara writes in the WSJ (subscription required) piece:

Mohanty Dolagobinda is one of the Visa God’s believers. Three years ago, a U.S. consulting company applied for a visa on his behalf. It was rejected. When the company tried again the following year, Mr. Dolagobinda’s friends told him to visit the Chilkur Balaji temple ahead of his interview at the U.S. consulate. Weeks later, he sailed through the interview. “I’ve never heard of anyone who’s gone to the temple whose visa got rejected,” says Mr. Dolagobinda.

Strange though it may seem, the Visa God is not Continue Reading…

Based on the number of filthy comments we received for our unbiased Billa Review, we feel there is a big pack of Sori Nayis among Tamil actor wannabe Ajith’s fans.

While this is admittedly an unscientific study and the sample size perhaps not large enough, the vulgarity, fury and malevolence in the harsh reaction among Ajith’s fans to our unbiased review of that horror show Billa suggests the possibility of widespread prevalence of rabies among Ajith’s fan-base.

When we criticized Azhagiya Tamil Magan, we encountered a few mild protests from Vijay’s fans.

But when we criticized Ajith’s Billa, we encountered an online lynch mob.

Some of the comment posters to our Billa Review threatened to chop off our fingers while others wanted us to die.

Indeed some of the vulgar comment posters claimed to be personal friends of Ajith and categorically stated that we should take the Continue Reading…

Everyone is after your information these days, especially in the online world.

All those pesky web sites want your Name, E-mail, Telephone Number, Social Security Number, Address, Sex, Date of Birth, length of your you know what and what not.

And before you know it your priceless personal information is floating around the world. Manna for identity thieves.

We just stumbled upon a blog that provides a list of valuable online disposable tools. Keep this list handy.

The disposable tools include:

Mintemail - Disposable e-mail
Numbr - Disposable Telephone number
BugMeNot - Disposable login details
FakeNameGenerator - Disposable fake names and address generator
File.io - Disposable anonymous file sharing service

Danish blogger Aibek deserves thanks for highlighting these tools.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece on the plight of India’s Brahmin caste in its Saturday edition.

Once a privileged caste closely aligned with the rulers of India for several centuries, the Brahmins have fallen on tough times over the last few decades owing to the reservation policies (affirmative action programs) of the federal and state governments in post-Independence India that set aside jobs and seats in engineering and medical colleges for the lower castes.

Discussing the reversal of fortune for the Brahmins, the WSJ (subscription required) piece observes that:

[I]n today’s India, high-caste privileges are dwindling, and with the government giving extensive preferences to the lower-caste majority, many Brahmins are feeling left out of the economy’s rapid expansion.

Originally a priestly and scholarly caste, the changing political and social milieu in India has compelled the Brahmins to branch out into other arenas.

The WSJ writers note of the sorry plight of Brahmins:

The reverse discrimination is rooted in Indian history and politics. For decades, Brahmins were resented for their dominance of the government, economy and culture. Indeed, political parties in Tamil Nadu sprang from anti-Brahmin feelings. “If you see a Brahmin and a snake, kill the Brahmin first” was an old slogan.

A national constitution adopted in 1950 reserved more than 20% of government jobs for lower castes. In 1990, an additional 27% were set aside for what were called “other backward castes.” Some states set higher quotas, including Tamil Nadu, which reserves 69% of government jobs for lower castes and other needy groups.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the reverse Continue Reading…

The two persons injured in the Siberian tiger attack at the San Francisco zoo on Christmas day (that left one dead) appear to be brothers of Indian origin going by their names.

The two are Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23 and his younger brother Amritpal (Paul) Dhaliwal, 19 of San Jose, California.

Paul Dhaliwal is believed to be a close friend of Continue Reading…

The market for paid online video download services like BigFlicks.com (owned by Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group) is just not there.

At least, not anytime in the near future.

BigFlicks offers a wide selection of Bollywood and a small collection of regional language movies in its video download service (buy or rent) for a fee ranging from $4.99 to $19.99.

In the latest signal of the limited prospects for paid online video download services, Wal-Mart just pulled the plug on its video download service in the U.S.

Wal-Mart’s technology partner HP told CNET that the market for paid video downloads was not in line with expectations.

In its Saturday (Dec.29) edition, the New York Times put it well:

Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest seller of DVDs. Its quiet abdication of digital downloads at the height of the holiday shopping season, while a stark contrast to the ballyhooed announcement of the service, was consistent with the ho-hum reaction by many consumers to the downloadable movie concept.

Unlike India, which has a pathetic broadband Internet infrastructure at the household level, the U.S. has a fairly Continue Reading…

Come on, if you really can’t answer the above question about our hot Bollywood and Kollywood babes, you are just not looking in the right place.

Well, if you are too shortsighted to notice, the short answer is: Namitha, Mallika and Urmila are all booby-traps.

Now, don’t ask us what a boobytrap is.

Ignore the dictionary meaning.

Instead, look at the pictures of these girls. This time, pay attention. Soon, you’ll have your eureka moment.

Having lived long years in both India and the West, we think Indians have a bigger obsession and fascination with breasts as symbols of sexuality than Americans. And bigger the better.

Not surprisingly many of our well known Indian film actresses - yesterday, today and surely tomorrow too - may not act well but they are well endowed.

Kollywood bombshell Namitha, Rangeela girl Urmila, beauty queen Sushmitha and Bollywood sex siren Mallika all owe a fair Continue Reading…

Ajith’s Billa, one of the worst Tamil movies in recent memory and a real horror show, has been pulled from Bay Area’s IMC 6 theater in San Jose and Vijay’s Azhagiya Tamil Magan and Surya’s Vel have been brought back.

The Thursday (Dec. 27) shows of Billa were also cancelled at IMC 6, which screens Tamil, Telugu and Hindi movies.

What do you make of all this?

The French Revolution is my tradition. It’s a mind-set of the French, that you need a revolution. I am deeply French.

  - controversial French comedian Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala.

Source: New Yorker, November 19, 2007

Former Pakistan Prime Minister and leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi today at 6:16 PM local time adding to the instability of this nuclear nation in South Asia.

Early reports say that a suicide bomber shot Benazir in the neck and chest as she was leaving a campaign rally in Rawalpindi and then blew himself up.

At least, 22 others are said to have died in the bomb blast.

Benazir Bhutto

This was not the first attempt on Benazir’s life. On October 19, a suicide attack on Benazir Bhutto in Karachi missed her but killed 150 people. 

A popular leader, Benazir’s death will add to the political vacuum in Pakistan.

A short while before her death, Benazir told the Rawalpindi rally:

I put my life in danger and came here because I feel this country is in danger. People are worried. We will bring the country out of this crisis.

Benazir had only recently returned to the country with America’s blessings from an eight-year self-imposed exile after receiving amnesty from Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf over the corruption charges that sullied her reputation.

But Benazir was never popular with Pakistan’s military, a major force in the

Continue Reading…